Hi there,

As the collective body of elected student representatives within the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department at Brunel University London, we have put together the following petition on the basis of clear feedback and desires from the majority of the students in our cohort. Please read carefully and then follow the instructions at the end of the text :

1. The current deadline to submit the Final Project Report as part of the Level 3 dissertations for the Mechanical & Aerospace department is 25th March.
2. The current deadline to submit the Group Design Report as part of the BEng Level 3 group projects for the Mechanical & Aerospace department is 20th April.

We propose that the deadline for (1.) be shifted to 24th April, and the deadline for (2.) be brought forward to 25th March. This would also require the oral presentations and posters for (1.) be shifted to after exams have finished. The logistics of this may appear difficult however it needs to happen for the following reasons :

• The individual dissertation is comprised of purely student-independent work and does not rely on much external commitment which takes the form of organising supervisor meetings.
• However, the group design projects involve regular meetings as a team, with lots of the work requiring input from each member of the group whilst they complete their assigned parts of the report.
• As a result, the time and effort required to maintain a proper workflow for (2.) as the university recommends will be significantly hindered over the Easter break.
• This is because international students and most students in general will likely be visiting family / returning home over the holiday, so the chance of coordinating a successful meeting in person or via virtual calling is minimal. Timezone differences, family commitments and the need to use the holiday break as intended (i.e a break from studying constantly throughout termtime) are the clear and likely reasons for this.
• The Easter break is perfect for students working individually on their dissertations, allowing them to work to a schedule that fits them and produce much higher quality work as a result. Term-time is perfect for students to meet as a team for the group projects with no hindrance.
• Moving the oral presentations and posters to after the exam season has finished will also allow students to adequately prepare for them. This would be without the pressure of revising for exams and having to attend presentations of other students during valuable hours which could be used for revision purposes (as any student will think).

It is also worth noting that :

• There is clear precedent for this to occur since the vast majority of the student body in the previous year were also faced with the same situation and were fairly heard and thus received a successful outcome.
• Two years ago the deadline was as we suggest it should be now, so clearly the idea we propose is achievable since it has been that way for many years.

The student body want our voices to be heard by the necessary staff in charge of elements (1.) and (2.). We are confident that meeting the requests of the students will strengthen the link with staff, allowing for higher quality work and as a result, better scores in the National Student Survey that is currently open.

Thank you.

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INSTRUCTIONS TO SIGN THIS PETITION :

If you agree with the motion to re-arrange the deadlines for (1.) and (2.) in the way described above, with emphasis on securing the desired outcome for (1.), sign this petition as follows :

Use your student ID as an alias for your name (to preserve anonymity). If you are comfortable with it then feel free to put your full name as well.

Once you have done this, look to your left and then to your right. If you see any of your peers whom this situation affects directly, show them this petition and encourage them to consider signing it.

IT IS STRESSED THAT YOU DO NOT USE ANOTHER STUDENT'S ID TO SIGN THIS OR ASK STUDENTS IN OTHER UNRELATED COURSES TO DO SO. THIS WILL SIGNIFICANTLY DISRUPT OUR EFFORTS TO SECURE A FAIR VIEW FOR THE STUDENT BODY AND CONSEQUENTLY OUR CREDIBILITY AS A VOICE WILL BE REDUCED. ALSO, DON'T VOTE ANONYMOUSLY AS THESE CANNOT BE VERIFIED AS WELL AS THOSE GIVING THEIR STUDENT ID.